Vesuvius appears to be about on a level with my eyes and I never knew him to do himself more credit than to-day.The whole coast of the bay is in a sort of obscuration, thicker than an Indian summer haze;and the veil extends almost to the top of Vesuvius.But his summit is still distinct, and out of it rises a gigantic billowy column of white smoke, greater in quantity than on any previous day of our sojourn; and the sun turns it to silver.Above a long line of ordinary looking clouds, float great white masses, formed of the sulphurous vapor.This manufacture of clouds in a clear, sunny day has an odd appearance; but it is easy enough, if one has such a laboratory as Vesuvius.How it tumbles up the white smoke! It is piled up now, I should say, a thousand feet above the crater, straight into the blue sky,--a pillar of cloud by day.One might sit here all day watching it, listening the while to the melodious spring singing of the hundreds of birds which have come to take possession of the garden, receiving southern reinforcements from Sicily and Tunis every morning, and think he was happy.But the morning has gone; and I have written nothing.
THE PRICE OF ORANGES
If ever a northern wanderer could be suddenly transported to look down upon the Piano di Sorrento, he would not doubt that he saw the Garden of the Hesperides.The orange-trees cannot well be fuller:
their branches bend with the weight of fruit.With the almond-trees in full flower, and with the silver sheen of the olive leaves, the oranges are apples of gold in pictures of silver.As I walk in these sunken roads, and between these high walls, the orange boughs everywhere hang over; and through the open gates of villas I look down alleys of golden glimmer, roses and geraniums by the walk, and the fruit above,--gardens of enchantment, with never a dragon, that Ican see, to guard them.
All the highways and the byways, the streets and lanes, wherever Igo, from the sea to the tops of the hills, are strewn with orange-peel; so that one, looking above and below, comes back from a walk with a golden dazzle in his eyes,--a sense that yellow is the prevailing color.Perhaps the kerchiefs of the dark-skinned girls and women, which take that tone, help the impression.The inhabitants are all orange-eaters.The high walls show that the gardens are protected with great care; yet the fruit seems to be as free as apples are in a remote New England town about cider-time.
I have been trying, ever since I have been here, to ascertain the price of oranges; not for purposes of exportation, nor yet for the personal importation that I daily practice, but in order to give an American basis of fact to these idle chapters.In all the paths Imeet, daily, girls and boys bearing on their heads large baskets of the fruit, and little children with bags and bundles of the same, as large as they can stagger under; and I understand they are carrying them to the packers, who ship them to New York, or to the depots, where I see them lying in yellow heaps, and where men and women are cutting them up, and removing the peel, which goes to England for preserves.I am told that these oranges are sold for a couple of francs a hundred.That seems to me so dear that I am not tempted into any speculation, but stroll back to the Tramontano, in the gardens of which I find better terms.
The only trouble is to find a sweet tree; for the Sorrento oranges are usually sour in February; and one needs to be a good judge of the fruit, and know the male orange from the female, though which it is that is the sweeter I can never remember (and should not dare to say, if I did, in the present state of feeling on the woman question),--or he might as well eat a lemon.The mercenary aspect of my query does not enter in here.I climb into a tree, and reach out to the end of the branch for an orange that has got reddish in the sun, that comes off easily and is heavy; or I tickle a large one on the top bough with a cane pole; and if it drops readily, and has a fine grain, Icall it a cheap one.I can usually tell whether they are good by splitting them open and eating a quarter.The Italians pare their oranges as we do apples; but I like best to open them first, and see the yellow meat in the white casket.After you have eaten a few from one tree, you can usually tell whether it is a good tree; but there is nothing certain about it,--one bough that gets the sun will be better than another that does not, and one half of an orange will fill your mouth with more delicious juices than the other half.
The oranges that you knock off with your stick, as you walk along the lanes, don't cost anything; but they are always sour, as I think the girls know who lean over the wall, and look on with a smile: and, in that, they are more sensible than the lively dogs which bark at you from the top, and wake all the neighborhood with their clamor.Ihave no doubt the oranges have a market price; but I have been seeking the value the gardeners set on them themselves.As I walked towards the heights, the other morning, and passed an orchard, the gardener, who saw my ineffectual efforts, with a very long cane, to reach the boughs of a tree, came down to me with a basketful he had been picking.As an experiment on the price, I offered him a two-centime piece, which is a sort of satire on the very name of money,--when he desired me to help myself to as many oranges as Iliked.He was a fine-looking fellow, with a spick-span new red Phrygian cap; and I had n't the heart to take advantage of his generosity, especially as his oranges were not of the sweetest.One ought never to abuse generosity.